


let's go dancing and singing (I know a good tune)

by ThunderstormsandMemories



Series: fifteen days of f@tt [3]
Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: 15 Days of FatT, 15 Days of FatT 2019, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 11:00:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18051242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderstormsandMemories/pseuds/ThunderstormsandMemories
Summary: Aria and Jacqui test their drift compatibility(for 15 Days of FatT 2019 prompt: drifting)





	let's go dancing and singing (I know a good tune)

**Author's Note:**

> for the 15 days of fatt day 3 prompt "drifting" (ok it's a day late but still) because how could I see that and /not/ do a pacrim au
> 
> title from [June aka Love's First Explosion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xpOtLzJeyc), a fansong by Emma Lloyd on youtube (please listen to it, it's beautiful and I've had it on repeat all day)

Aria took a deep breath and readjusted her headset for what had to be the tenth time, at least. She didn’t get stage fright anymore, hadn’t since she was a teenager, but the first drift was always terrifying. It was the intimacy of it, the sheer, staggering vulnerability. Even standing alone in front of a crowd screaming her name, even on the rare occasions when she’d been allowed to sing words that came directly from her heart, that hadn’t been edited and rearranged by managers and agents and the cooperate powers-that-be who didn’t necessarily like the anti-establishment direction she’d started going by the end of her time with JoyPark, it hadn’t felt like the drift. But then, nothing did. Nothing compared to feeling so completely connected, so in tune with how someone else felt. It was terrifying, and an even better rush than singing, or fighting, or standing in the passenger seat with the top down and AuDy driving far above the speed limit with her hair whipping into her face and the endless desert stretching out in every direction, so fast that everything except the horizon was a blur of bright hot colors.

Sometimes she missed touring, missed the roar of the crowd and the thrill of a new city each night, and sometimes she even missed JoyPark, not that she would ever admit to it outside the drift or several drinks, but mostly, what she missed was road trips with the Chime. She missed AuDy driving too fast across the desert, and Mako messing with the jukebox in empty roadside diners, and Cass sighing reluctantly when they stopped at tacky tourist attractions—usually at either her or Mako’s insistence—but buying souvenirs at each one anyway: hats and incredibly obnoxious sunglasses for the next time they or she or Mako inevitably lost theirs, keychains and water bottles and t-shirts for their own collection, postcards that as far as Aria saw they never sent.

She was happy at the Shatterdome, as happy as anyone could be in the apocalypse. She was helping, finally, she was doing something important and making a difference, and sometimes even she’d still illegally upload a new Aria Joie song that she’d recorded from her bunk while her roommates were out. And she’d gotten to stay with her friends, until recently. They were a good team, all of them. Marshal Godlove had seen that right away, even as he expressed his disapproval at some of the riskier stunts they liked to pull.

But now Cass was leaving for the Apostolos Shatterdome, on special request from their parent the Apokine, and Mako was grounded until Dr. Rethal figured out what was happening with Larry, and AuDy was still reeling from the discovery that they could pilot solo and still handle the neural load. All of which meant Aria needed a co-pilot, and the only person she’d clicked with, both on paper and in the combat trials, was the woman she’d been quietly crushing on for the past several months.

She hadn’t expected to past the combat trials, honestly. She’d been so flustered when she saw who she’d be facing, and sure, she’d landed a few hits of her own, but the fight had end with Aria laying flat on her back with a bloody nose, smirking up at Jacqui Green and asking if she wanted to go for drinks later.

They’d gone for drinks to celebrate being one step closer to being pilots again, but mostly what had happened was that Jacqui had talked about her old partner, and Aria felt guilty about Jill’s death. She hadn’t been on that mission, but AuDy had, and it had been their decision that had led to Jill falling from her jaeger into the Pacific, and therefore to Jacqui sitting next to Aria in the dive bar a few blocks away from the Shatterdome where all the rangers went to drink without risking a run-in with someone who might tell them to do something more responsible with their time. And then Jacqui had downed another shot, took her by the hand, and pulled her up to the stage for karaoke.

Jacqui had laughed, when Aria recognized that the song Jacqui had picked was one of her own, barely audible above the pounding bass and the shouting crowd, but it was a sound that Aria treasured, one clear moment from a night blurred by tequila and too much reminiscing.

And now Jacqui stood next to her in the cockpit of her jaeger—their jaeger now, if this last compatibility test succeeded—and smirked when Aria looked at her.

“You ready for this?” said Jacqui.

“Why don’t you step into my head and find out?” said Aria.

“Maybe I will,” said Jacqui, and she winked. Shit. Aria was in deep, and in about five seconds Jacqui would be in her thoughts and would know exactly how she felt.

“Hey, I just wanna say…” But when Jacqui looked at her, she ran out of words. “I’m glad it’s you.”

“Me too,” Jacqui said, and then they were in the drift.

Aria was lucky, to be so strongly compatible with so many people, and the drift felt different with each of them. Everyone had their own metaphor for it, Aria knew. She’d heard it described as a conversation, a wave, a door, like falling, like flying, like dreaming. For her it was like dancing, a continuation of the combat trial, set to songs that she could never quite fully remember when she tried to write them later. It was different with everyone, a different mood, a different song.

With Jacqui it was like karaoke night, like opening night of a tour, so many voices singing along and shouting for her attention but she only had eyes for Jacqui, and the only melody that mattered was the one they were going to make together.


End file.
